Learning Curve
by youllstartariotbarbarella
Summary: Klaus always plays the long game and he always wins. dark. one-shot


**Disclaimer: I own nothing.**

**As it turns out I am incapable of writing a nice story. so here's some dark fic instead.**

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She watched him rise to his full height, his spine unfurling, the curve of his back straightening at a lax almost casual pace. Caroline could practically hear the smooth sound of each vertebrae clicking perfectly into place. He looked so serene standing there among the corpses of his treacherous hybrid army. He was a man without remorse, a man who always played the long game and _always_ won.

"Hullo, darling," he said but paused to lean back down and rip Hayley's heart from her chest for good measure, "lovely weather we've been having don't you think?"

And it _was_ a nice day sans all the murder and mayhem. The sun was shining over Mystic Falls, over the bodies and the broken burning buildings. Not a cloud in the sky. Caroline never made a move to run from him. She couldn't. He had pinned her to tree, a stake protruding for her stomach. Instead she swallowed her pain and studied him with fear and disgust as he rummaged through the bodies taking inventory, cutting his losses. The heart in his hand was probably still warm.

"Is that supposed to be a joke?" Caroline said through her teeth, a bit of dark blood dribbling down her chin, "Is this supposed to be the funny part?"

He tilted his head to the side, with a deadly grace that had taken a thousand years to hone. A small languid smile stretched his lips across his face as he dropped Hayley's heart in the dust. Try as she might Caroline found she could muster no sympathy for the werewolf even as blood pooled in the hole in cavity of her chest. She was partly the reason they were all in that mess anyway.

He looked almost angelic in the most biblical sense of the word. Cruel, powerful, absolute he would have made cities fall with a flick of his wrists.

"No, sweetheart, the funny part is that you didn't think I'd find out. Do you really think that low of me?" Klaus asked his question echoing their encounter from so long ago.

She wanted to say 'yes' as she did before but she bit the inside of her cheek instead. It would do her no good to offend him.

"No answer? No biting remark?" He shrugged, the droop in shoulders and laze in his tone feigned nonchalance, but Caroline could see the rage buried just beneath, "no matter I already know the answer. You must think I'm quite a fool to think I would have fallen for your little act. I must say you've really hurt my feelings."

He kicked aside a body, a hybrid named Jesse, as he made his way towards her. Caroline hated herself for shaking, for being afraid but he looked like the Devil, in fact she was sure he was. He had slaughtered nearly everyone in town, the rest had the sense to run but there was a good chance he would just hunt them down later.

_It wouldn't do anyone any good if I left them to spread horrible rumors about us now would it_, she imagined would be his reasoning.

They should have seen this coming. Their little gang had dodged too many bullets, one was bound to hit eventually. It just so happened that it was a grenade.

"You, your silly boyfriend and his werewolf _bitch_ thought you had me fooled," he laughed as if it was some great joke, "now that's the funny part, Caroline."

"So what now? You and your crazy family burned down the town, your house, killed my friends, what else do want to take from me?"

He smiled as he ripped the stake from her body. Caroline gasped but restrained the scream that bubbled up in her throat. There would be a time for screaming.

"Come now, love," he cooed, "I didn't kill _all _your friends just the ones that didn't matter. And I gave you a chance, many chances to come clean."

Caroline considered giving reasons, appealing to his common sense. She considered begging but didn't. She still had some dignity and she figured she could leave some for Klaus to burn. It was the polite thing to do.

"Are you going to kill me?"

Because honestly he could hurry up with it already, watching him kill hybrids was getting old. And her hair was a mess, her make-up in shambles. She had no home to return to her, her friends and family were scattered to the wind. If he was looking for her lowest point, if he was waiting for her hit rock bottom, she was there.

"Oh Caroline, I think you know by now that there are far worse things than death," he reached up to gloss his fingers over the skin of her cheek leaving behind a trail of red.

The color stained her skin the way it stained her hands, her life.

"You're breathtaking in red, dearest," Klaus said.

"Fuck you."

Klaus smiled generously at her outburst as if were indulging her.

"Mmm maybe later, for now I'll have to teach you just what it means to disappoint me. You'll learn to mind me, Caroline. I'm going to drill it into that pretty little head of yours that these are the consequences you risk whenever you cross me so that next time you'll get it right."

Caroline finally let out a despairing sob, partly because she was scared but also because torture was getting old. Klaus responded only by placing a kind kiss on the crown of her head.

"Let's begin, shall we?"

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**All righty boys and girls, you know the drill. Hate it? Love it? Want to set me on fire with flames of your immaculate and eternal anger? Let me know. **

**much love,**

**bri.**


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